


It is not the dew that chooses where to fall

by uumuu



Series: Fëanorian Family Moments [6]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Minor Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-23 01:15:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11979042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uumuu/pseuds/uumuu
Summary: A young Curufin overhears something that makes him doubt his own goals.





	It is not the dew that chooses where to fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amyfortuna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amyfortuna/gifts).



> Many thanks to my beta!

The man's voice rang out clearly inside the garden and – Curufinwë could have sworn – down the whole avenue and on to the city walls. Or maybe it was what he said that echoed in his ears like the din of the many bells of Valmar when they rang all together once every twelve years to commemorate the coming of the Elves to Valinor.

“Your fifth son...he truly shows remarkable skill. His achievements are impressive, for one still so young. I wonder if he could surpass even you.”

Curufinwë stopped midstride at those words, just a few steps away from the garden gate. He leaned against one of the cherry trees in full bloom, one of seven planted near the tall bay hedge which surrounded the back of the garden, shielding it from curious gazes. The hedge hid the man and his father from him, and Curufinwë wished it could have as effectively blocked sound. 

He had been looking forward to his father's return. Fëanáro had gone out to fetch a batch of special metals he had ordered, too impatient to wait for the merchant's delivery, while Curufinwë was still getting ready. Curufinwë couldn't help chiding himself: if only he had been the one to go fetch the metals, his father wouldn't have run into the man, and wouldn't have had to put up with his unpleasantness. There would have been no insinuating words, no sudden misgivings gripping Curufinwë's heart.

'I wonder if he could surpass even you.'

There was no chance of something like that ever happening. Only someone blind as a bat could have failed to see it. Curufinwë had quickly become proficient in smithcraft, mastering all the techniques his father had learnt from others and perfected, and the new techniques he had established himself. Curufinwë's creations were flawless, combining refinement and durability, but every single one of them paled in comparison to his father's. He didn't have half of his inventiveness, and all the skill he could apply to his work would never compensate for that. He could surpass his father only if Fëanáro stopped working altogether, but that was an eventuality he didn't even want to take into consideration.

“Wouldn't it be...ironic, for you to be surpassed by your own child, and not even one of the oldest?” the man insisted, apparently unwilling to desist without the satisfaction of obtaining a reply from Fëanáro, even at the cost of arousing his wrath.

The reply came, trenchant and decisive, and laced with the expectable scorn. 

“If that happened, I couldn't be happier.” 

Curufinwë bit his lower lip. He was overjoyed to hear his father say that, but at the same time the words made acutely uneasy. His greatest aspiration since childhood – since his father had first taken him to the smithy holding him in his arms and pointing at tools – had been to work at his father's side, spend his days with him in their shared workspace and help him at need. Now that he was come of age and knew more of the world – knew sundry other crafts as well as the intricacies and pitfalls of court of life – he was certain he would be perfectly content with that. He didn't care about other people's expectations. He had never thought about his father's. He asked himself how he could have failed to. It wouldn't have been strange or unwarranted for his father to expect _truly_ extraordinary achievements from him. The image of his father's satisfaction when he made it clear that he wanted to be a smith like him never left Curufinwë, shining bright in his mind whenever he stepped into the smithy they shared.

“Curvo?” 

Curufinwë started. He hurriedly raised his head, but his father wasn't looking at him, fumbling with the lock on the gate, while he balanced three heavy looking bundles with his left arm. Curufinwë composed himself, and came forward to take some of the bundles from him, burying his thoughts under words of welcome and his distress under a smile. 

*

Curufinwë sat on a low stool in a corner of the smithy, his left hand sunk in a bucket of clean water to cool the burning blossoming on the back of it. He had been wearing an old, half-worn glove, and the sparks from the piece of metal he was hammering on landed straight on it. He realised they had burnt through the fabric only when the pain became unbearable, and it was too late. 

His father stood at the other side of the smithy, retrieving the pot of ointment made from the juice of the aloe plant he kept there, as well as a clean rag and bandages. Curufinwë could hear him mutter under his breath, while he rummaged through boxes and jars, nearly knocking them off the shelf. He was back where Curufinwë was sitting in ten nervous strides. He crouched down, setting the pot on the floor. He gingerly lifted Curufinwë's hand from the water and gingerly tapped it to make sure the skin had cooled properly, and there was no risk of the burn growing even larger.

“I'm sorry, Dad,” Curufinwë said, while Fëanáro dabbed his hand dry with the rag. 

Fëanáro gave him a reproachful glance. Tears had welled up in Curufinwë's eyes from the pain, and his vision was still a little blurry. He blinked several times, trying to clear it, trying to avoid looking his father in the eye.

“What has gotten into you?” Fëanáro said sharply, but with that particular inflection that meant his anger stemmed from worry rather than displeasure. 

He uncorked the jar and scooped up a generous gob of the salve, which he spread on Curufinwë's hand with the utmost care. 

Curufinwë's hand throbbed violently at the first contact of the salve, but he made no sound apart from a hiss he failed to stifle. 

“You know you shouldn't work when you're tired, or distracted.” 

Fëanáro cocked his head in the direction of the anvil. Curufinwë's hammer was still balanced on its surface. The metal coil he had been working on, a misshapen thing that would need to be reheated and reworked again from scratch, had clattered to the floor when he let go of it.

“Is something troubling you?”

Fëanáro waited for a reply, in vain.

Curufinwë kept staring numbly at his father's fingers, moving in slow circles over his reddened skin. His gaze remained downcast even after Fëanáro was done with the salve and started bandaging his hand. He wound and wound, quickly and efficiently, careful not to tie the bandages too tight even if each of his movements betrayed his agitation. Then he corked the pot again and put the rag over it.

“Curvo, please speak to me. Has something happened? Are you worried, tired?”

“I –...” 

“If you don't feel like working here -”

“No!” Curufinwë jerked his head up. His eyes met his father's. Speaking to him was much harder than ever before, much harder than he would ever have anticipated, but he couldn't live with that nagging doubt. He had to clear things up, before his father made the wrong assumptions. He cleared his throat and took a deep breath. If his left hand hadn't been hurt he would have clenched both into fists. “I -...don't think I could ever surpass you. It's not what I want to do, at any rate,” he said, doing his best to hold his father's searching gaze.

Fëanáro blinked – Curufinwë could almost see the words arranging themselves into a meaning inside his head. His brow furrowed, and the worry etched on his face took on a sharper edge.

“You heard? That day....it was almost a week ago.”

Curufinwë nodded. He had spent those full seven days turning the words over in his mind. 

Fëanáro huffed, shaking his head.

“Foolishness,” he said sternly, and Curufinwë flinched. “I can't believe you would heed a stranger's wilful snideness more than your father's love, that you wouldn't talk to me about it for so long.” 

“I'm sorry,” Curufinwë said in a hushed voice that was all but drowned by Fëanáro's. “I don't want to disappoint you. That's all.” 

“What's that supposed to mean?” 

Curufinwë had the urge to cry again, but not from the pain. “You were so happy when I started working with you here in the smithy.”

Once again – tirelessly – Curufinwë recalled those days: their first shared project, the long hours spent bouncing ideas back and forth and working out the minutest details. His father's concentration, and his growing enthusiasm while the large lamp took shape under their hands. The tiredness, which made them fall asleep against each other on the old rickety bench inside the smithy after they put out the fire. His own satisfaction for having achieved something none of his brothers had. 

His father took each one of his older brothers to the smithy when they were old enough to be around fires and sharp tools, but all invariably left after learning the basics. Maitimo hadn't even stayed that long, in fact, and Macalaurë had stayed a little longer than the others only because he liked the sound of the hammer hitting the anvil, and wanted to study the pitch and rhythm of it to use it in the making of music someday. 

Curufinwë dubbed his brothers fools, in his heart, for denying themselves the sight of the childish excitement on their father's face when he realised Curufinwë wasn't going to give up on smithcraft, that he had the talent for it, as well as passion and patience to match his own. 

“I was immensely happy,” Fëanáro said, touching on his memories with his mind. “And I still am. Why shouldn't I be?”

“I love you Dad,” Curufinwë breathed out. “You're the most important person to me and I don't want to ever disappoint you, or let you down. Ever. That's what _I_ want more than anything else. I couldn't live with myself if I knew you're unhappy because of me.”

“Curvo.” Fëanáro's expression softened, and his posture relaxed. He sat back on his legs, spread his hands on Curufinwë's thighs, palm-upwards, and Curufinwë laid his own on top of them. “Is there anything else I could possibly ask from you? I'd truly be overjoyed if you surpassed me – you, my own son, and my best student! But it would make no sense of me to expect it from you. Your inspiration is different from mine anyway, and that is a good thing. You could stop working in the smithy altogether, too, start doing something else like Cáno or Moryo and I'd make sure you have all you need to find satisfaction in what you do.”

“You would be sad if I did that,” Curufinwë objected without hesitation. 

“I would. Devastated, probably. But also happy...I couldn't be happier than I am now, at any rate!” Fëanáro added in a lighter tone.

Curufinwë couldn't hold back a smile.

“Do you remember the first set of working clothes I gave you?”

“You had them all made from the best leather, with embossing too, and mother said it was a waste because I would soon outgrow them, and Moryo was jealous.” Curufinwë had started making tools for all sorts of projects for Carnistir as a peace offering, and that had helped Carnistir find his own vocation.

“I still keep them in a chest, and sometimes I take them out and look at them...the same I do with the plainer clothes your brothers wore during their apprenticeship. I will never throw any of those away, even if your brothers didn't become smiths.”

Fëanáro stood up, drawing Curufinwë with him. His arms locked around Curufinwë's still lithe frame. It wasn't a gentle hold, it was a tight, almost painful grip, but Curufinwë didn't mind. Nothing he would ever achieve could compare to his father's embrace, to the quiver that ran through his father's body when he hugged him back.

“I'm sorry for making you worry.”

“Shh, it's no matter now. Does your hand hurt still much?”

“Not too bad now.”

“Good. Let's go see what Moryo is up to. And maybe brew you something to help with the pain, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> The title is the translation of the first half of a poem by Fujiwara no Michinaga, included in the Diary of Lady Murasaki.


End file.
